Top 5 Fun And Useful DIY Projects For Your Old Car DC 12 Volt Battery

Inside the heart of every electric enthusiast lies that DIY passion. Hence the reason why we are always dedicated to discussing simple DIY inspirations to fuel our creativity and we love to share

Many seemingly useless or forgotten things can be used as the core for numerous DIY projects. However, in this article, we will be focusing on DC 12 volt car batteries. This item is fairly easy and cheap to get, and can power a lot of DIY electrical projects that are not only fun as heck , but also practical and useful.

A car battery can be useful both in its dead/depleted state and active state. However, for the sake of this discussion, we will only be focusing on active and working batteries. Without further ado, here are five awesome DIY ideas that makes good use of a working DC 12 volt car battery

1. Power Source For DIY Robots

Building a robot is a fun activity for both children and adults, and contrary to popular belief, building one is not as hard as it seems.

You can power any 12-volt robot with an active car battery, but of course, the size of the robot must be proportionally bigger than the battery itself. After all, for robots, bigger is better, right? So it won't be a problem.

Many resources are available to start building your robot, and we have compiled some of the notable ones that will be useful for different levels of experience:

A robot building guide for beginners.Although this tutorial doesn't use a car battery, this can act like a building block for your future projects. You can easily replace the AA batteries with a car battery if you desire by modifying the materials to be able to withstand the weight.

The squirrel chasing robot uses 9 AA batteries wired in serial, and can easily be replaced by a car battery. This project can easily be done with a 3D printer. Check out the guide here.

After you covered the basics, your robot design should only be limited by your own imagination. Don't forget to send us a coverage of your DIY car battery-powered robot.

2. Use It To Build Your Own Car

image: rickharris,Instructable

If a group of small kids can build an electric racing car using 2 car batteries, surely you can do it!

This Instructables article covered how they built a racing car that can reach 30-40 MPH, not bad considering how cheap the materials are.

Here are some other notable similar guides and articles that might inspire you in the project:

An episode of the famous Top Gear series covered how the guys built an electric car. Not only you can learn the basics from this video, this can also be an entertaining watch.

Damian Rene from YouTube built an electric car complete with a solar power generator. He used Li-ion batteries in this projects, but you can simply replace it with your car batteries for a cheaper alternative.

Survivopedia covered a few different alternatives to the project, using different items ranging from a washing machine to a bicycle. Worth the read!

5. Car Battery Charger

Although not technically a project, you will need a way to recharge your car battery, or else it will not be usable after a while. Thus, this one will be useful for all other projects listed in this article.